30 Foods to Cook Before 30: Brownies

With my 29th birthday only a month a way, it’s definitely crunch time in knocking out the 30 Foods to Cook before 30 list! Last weekend I finally checked brownies off the list. Now of course I have made brownies many times in my almost 29 years, but this was the first time I made them from scratch. In the past, I’ve been more than happy to let Ghirardelli do the heavy lifting because their brownie mix is super delicious PLUS you can buy it in bulk at Costco. I knew I just couldn’t make any old brownie for my first official brownie so I went on the internet and searched for a copycat recipe of a brownie that makes it into my top 5 favorite brownies of all time, Fat Witch Bakery‘s Original brownie.

In my opinion the Fat Witch Original brownie strikes the perfect balance between cakiness & fudge texture and sweet & bitter flavors. I went with this recipe from Bake or Break. They were incredibly easy to make (I didn’t even need to break out my mixer) and didn’t require anything I don’t normally keep on hand since I substituted semisweet chips and 1/2 tsp of cocoa powder for the bittersweet chocolate chips. Technically you can do a one to one swap on the chips since their levels of cacao are really close. Bittersweet typically has a slightly higher cacao content making it slightly more bitter which is why I added a bit of cocoa powder. At the end of the day, the brownies turned out perfectly! They were fudgey but not dense and chocolately without being overly sweet just like the Fat Witch Original Brownie!

This will definitely be my go-to base brownie recipe from now on (sorry Ghirardelli!). I can’t wait to try adding in some fun mix-ins to take my brownies to the next level!

What’s your favorite brownie recipe? Let us know so we can give it a try and see how it compares!